Faculty of Chemistry, Biotechnology and Food Science, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, 1432 Aas, Norway.
Department of Physics, University of Oslo, 0316 Oslo, Norway.
Meat Sci. 2019 Jun;152:8-19. doi: 10.1016/j.meatsci.2019.02.002. Epub 2019 Feb 8.
Novel freezing solutions are constantly being developed to reduce quality loss in meat production chains. However, there is limited focus on identifying the sensitive analytical tools needed to directly validate product changes that result from potential improvements in freezing technology. To benchmark analytical tools relevant to meat research and production, we froze pork samples using traditional (-25 °C, -35 °C) and cryogenic freezing (-196 °C). Three classes of analyses were tested for their capacity to separate different freeze treatments: thaw loss testing, bioelectrical spectroscopy (nuclear magnetic resonance, microwave, bioimpedance) and low-temperature microscopy (cryo-SEM). A general effect of freeze treatment was detected with all bioelectrical methods. Yet, only cryo-SEM resolved quality differences between all freeze treatments, not only between cryogenic and traditional freezing. The detection sensitivity with cryo-SEM may be explained by testing meat directly in the frozen state without prior defrosting. We discuss advantages, shortcomings and cost factors in using analytical tools for quality monitoring in the meat sector.
新型冷冻溶液不断被开发出来以减少肉类生产链中的质量损失。然而，对于确定需要哪些敏感的分析工具来直接验证潜在冷冻技术改进所带来的产品变化，关注有限。为了基准与肉类研究和生产相关的分析工具，我们使用传统的（-25°C、-35°C）和低温冷冻（-196°C）冷冻猪肉样品。测试了三类分析方法来分离不同的冷冻处理：解冻损失测试、生物电光谱（核磁共振、微波、生物阻抗）和低温显微镜（冷冻扫描电子显微镜）。所有生物电方法都检测到了冷冻处理的一般效果。然而，只有 cryo-SEM 分辨出了所有冷冻处理之间的质量差异，而不仅仅是低温和传统冷冻之间的差异。cryo-SEM 的检测灵敏度可能是由于直接在冷冻状态下测试肉类，而无需事先解冻。我们讨论了在肉类行业质量监测中使用分析工具的优势、缺点和成本因素。
